Linux kernel KVM Power8 conflicting use of HSTATE_HOST_R1 (Linux kernel Linux kernel)

CVE-2020-8834
MEDIUM 6.5

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.35 % · percentile 28 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
canonical
NVD status
Modified

Description

KVM in the Linux kernel on Power8 processors has a conflicting use of HSTATE_HOST_R1 to store r1 state in kvmppc_hv_entry plus in kvmppc_{save,restore}_tm, leading to a stack corruption. Because of this, an attacker with the ability run code in kernel space of a guest VM can cause the host kernel to panic. There were two commits that, according to the reporter, introduced the vulnerability: f024ee098476 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Pull out TM state save/restore into separate procedures") 87a11bb6a7f7 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Work around XER[SO] bug in fake suspend mode") The former landed in 4.8, the latter in 4.17. This was fixed without realizing the impact in 4.18 with the following three commits, though it's believed the first is the only strictly necessary commit: 6f597c6b63b6 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S PR: Add guest MSR parameter for kvmppc_save_tm()/kvmppc_restore_tm()") 7b0e827c6970 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Factor fake-suspend handling out of kvmppc_save/restore_tm") 009c872a8bc4 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S PR: Move kvmppc_save_tm/kvmppc_restore_tm to separate file")

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-368 — Context Switching Race Condition
  • CWE-362 — Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 6.5CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:Hcanonical
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 6.5CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:HNVD · security@ubuntu.com (Secondary)
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 6.5CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:HNVD · nvd@nist.gov (Primary)
CVSS 2.0MEDIUM 4.9AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:CNVD · nvd@nist.gov (Primary)

European references

CERT-FR advisories

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

Affected products

ProductVersions
Linux kernel · Linux kernelaffected 4.8 < unspecified ; affected unspecified < 4.18

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
CERT-FR (ANSSI)Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD